


Queen Yasmine's Wife

by Muccamukk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dress Up, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-25 19:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20729522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: "They had a lot of guns; I had slightly psychic paper, and now they all think I'm Queen Extravaganza VII of Nint."Or, Queen Yasmine needs the Doctor to pretend to be her wife.





	Queen Yasmine's Wife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).

"How did this happen?" Ryan demanded. Graham didn't ask anything, but raised an inquiring eyebrow and the Doctor just watched them as though she was trying to remember if she'd left an inter-dimensional science experiment on the stove.

"I told you!" Yaz snapped in return. It really had been too long a day already. "They had a lot of guns; I had slightly psychic paper, and now they all think I'm Queen Extravaganza VII of Nint."

"Happens to me all the time," the Doctor said encouragingly. "As long as the real queen doesn't show up, it's fine. Usually. Sometimes."

"Sometimes," Graham echoed. Yaz could see his expectations for the day written on his face, and they were gloomy.

The Doctor stepped in and put one hand on Graham's shoulder and the other on Yaz's. "Sometimes it even works out when the real queen does show up. Depends if she has a sense of humour."

Yaz pushed away the inappropriate thoughts that always seemed to drift in when the Doctor touched her and tried to make her case. "That's the problem," she said.

"Queen doesn't have a sense of humour?" Ryan asked.

"No, I don't think she's coming back" Yaz explained. That earned her the Doctor's singular focus. "They were all hot to see me because she'd been missing for four days, and some big treaty signing is tomorrow!"

"Well we can't have that!" the Doctor said. She broke away from the group to stride across the room and spread her arms out as she spun around. Her coat swirled around her. "We'll have to find her then. Let me think. Okay! I've got it. Yaz will keep being Queen Extravaganza VII. Graham and Ryan will go down to the space port and see what they can find about the real queen's ship, and I will..."

"Be my wife," Yaz blurted. She slapped her hands over her mouth and felt her cheeks heat under her fingertips. "I mean pretend. Pretend to be my wife. I.. well, the Queen needs, has a wife. They both expected to be at the reception tonight. So.... so you need to be my wife."

The Doctor's face lit up like a fireworks show. "And I will be Yaz's wife!" she crowed. "Brilliant. I've been a husband loads of times, but I've never been a wife!"

Graham cleared his throat. "Alabama, 1957?"

"Pish, doesn't count." The Doctor didn't say why Alabama didn't count and Prarig IV did, just went to poke at the console.

Yaz wasn't going to argue with it. The inappropriate thoughts were back already, and she was too busy trying to figure out how to make it through the next four hours without giving something away, _and_ find the missing Queen in time to sign the treaty. "We should get ready?" she said tentatively.

The Doctor looked up and blinked. "Ready? What about us isn't ready. I'm always ready, me."

"I think it's more..." Yaz glanced at Ryan who gave her a _don't make me explain look_. "It's a royal reception. I think we're meant to dress up."

"What? A new frock?" The Doctor asked. She looked down at her coat, jamming her hands in the pockets so she could flap it around her ankles. "I dunno if I'll like that. Still, I'm going to be Yaz's wife, I should wear a new frock." She gave Yaz a dazzling smile, the sort of thing that ate up her whole face.

Yaz was so blinded that it took her a moment to realise that the Doctor's history of picking outfits was, to say the least, alarming. "Why don't we pick them together," she said. "That way we'll match!"

* * *

"Are you sure you'll be okay in those?" Yaz asked, watching the Doctor totter on a pair of glorious red heels. "You look like you're about to turn an ankle."

"If the Doctor's wife can wear them, so can the Yaz's wife," the Doctor said. But then she teetered so badly that she fell against Yaz's shoulder for support and had to stop for a minute before she got upright again. "And it's only until we get to the reception."

At least the rest of her outfit worked better on her. It was not unlike the one she'd been wearing when they'd first met: a clean-lined black suit with a white shirt, only the back of the jacket had some kind of multicoloured mane of ribbons that Yaz said she didn't understand, and the Doctor insisted was essential to Nintish apparel.

It made more sense than the layers upon layers of sapphire and emerald ribbons Yaz was wearing. When she'd said Royal Reception, she'd been thinking of the Sita Devi or Grace Kelly or at least the Duchess of Cambridge, not a cross between a Victorian fairy outfit and a ticker tape parade. However, it was a copy of a dress Extravaganza VII had worn—or an actual dress Exravaganza VII had worn, the Doctor hadn't been clear—and Yaz was left flopping her arms and asking, "Are you sure this looks all right?"

Instead of taking the question as a random plea for assurance and telling Yaz she would be fine, the Doctor turned and looked her up and down with a critical eye. Yaz found her self blushing and wishing she'd done more with her hair than braid ribbons into it. She either had too much make up on or not enough. There were no picture of Extravaganza's face.

"You look beautiful, Yaz," the Doctor said. "Radiant, a star in the sky." She stepped back to make a sweeping gesture and caught her heel in the grating on the floor. Yaz dashed forward and caught her hands.

"There's still time to change your shoes," Yaz said. "You're taking them off at the reception anyway, yeah?"

"No," the Doctor said. "I'll just be able to stand up in them there."

She held onto Yaz's hands for a moment longer than Yaz thought was needed to regain her balance. As always, her skin was cool to the touch and very smooth. Yaz had always wondered what it would be like to touch the rest of the Doctor's body, or be touched by her.

Yaz licked her lips and tried to think of what to say. The Doctor's hands were so strong on her forearms, as strong as Yaz had always wanted to be. For a moment their eyes met, and Yaz felt like something almost connected between them, a spark jumping a gap.

"Come on then!" The Doctor whirled away and started pulling Yaz towards the door of the TARDIS. "Off to the party! I love a good party! There's always so many explosions."

Yaz had known her long enough not to ask if she meant fireworks.

"Good luck," Ryan yelled as the doors closed behind them. Whatever Graham added was lost.

Fortunately for the Doctor's ankles, the reception hall was only a few corridors away from where she'd parked the TARDIS.

"The key to royal etiquette," the Doctor explained as they walked, "is that the aristocracy spends centuries—or millennia in some cases—making it impossible to understand. An outsider can't learn it, and that's precisely why they make it so bloody difficult. It keeps the riff raff out, unless the riff raff is as clever as me."

Yaz thought about the curtsy they'd had to learn when Princess Margaret visited their school. "But you're clever enough to learn it?" she asked.

"I'm clever enough to know that I don't have to," the Doctor told her, which inspired less confidence than she'd probably been hoping for. "But we're lucky. They've never had a Nintish queen here, don't know how one's supposed to act. Just put on a lot of airs, and tell everyone it's a custom if they ask, which they won't, because you're the queen of ten systems and have a very large battlefleet. Which, incidentally, we should probably figure out where the very large battlefleet is, before they realise their queen's missing."

That had been the first Yaz had heard of a battlefleet, but it made sense in the context of there needing to be a treaty. Meanwhile, they rounded the last corner before the hall widened into a grand entry way. Yaz slowed her pace and put her arm out for the Doctor to take. That both looked very queenly, and had the advantage of providing stabilisation for the Doctor's heels.

"I hope you don't think you can run in those," Yaz murmured.

"Why would I need to run when I can fly?" the Doctor replied, her lips almost touching Yaz's ear.

"What?" Yaz asked, but then the captain of the guard—the same captain of the guard Yaz had met earlier—was bowing slightly and calling them _Your Majesty_ and _Your Grace_.

The Doctor nodded curtly and walked towards the doors as though she had hardly noticed the dozen armed guards in full dress regalia. "Shall we go in, darling?"

Yaz unstuck herself and walked through the now open double doors. She expected to see some kind of gilt ballroom, like in Blenheim Palace, but what she saw was empty space. The room wasn't a room, it was darkness and stars with people floating about in it. Yaz would have stopped again, only the Doctor had her arm still, and wasn't slowing down. Yaz kept step with her while trying not to gape.

As soon as she stepped through the double doors, the gravity stopped. Yaz felt her stomach flip like it always did when the Doctor dragged them into zero-gravity environments, and then she felt her hair lifting around her. "Doctor..."

She turned to the Doctor, who was kicking off from the sill to head up into space. The mane of ribbons on the back of her jacket spread out around her like a halo, and Yaz suddenly understood that both of their outfits were designed for this. She herself was in a floating sea of fronds and little flowers, like a goddess of growing things, and the Doctor was a heraldic knight in a sharp suit. The heels didn't matter because they were both flying: the Doctor on her own, and Yaz pulled along by their linked arms. The ribbons streamed behind them as they flew.

They came to one of the stars, a crystal light inside a metal cage that made enough handholds for a group to gather and chat. The dress swirled around Yaz when she stopped, mingling with her hair. She felt her heart pounding with the excitement of the flight and the enchantment of the wonderful room. Now that she had perspective, Yaz could see that some of the stars were like this one, but many more were projections against the walls. Nebula glowed purple and red, and galaxies rotated in the distance.

She wanted to turn to the Doctor and chatter excitedly, but she was a queen with a hypothetical battlefleet, and there were witnesses.

An older woman in a pressed uniform and buzz cut hair bent at the waist slightly. A little round robot, not bigger than a Pting popped up between them and said, "Queen Extravaganza VII of Nint and her wife Doctor Precipice, this is Fleet Admiral Koshart of the Second Expanse."

"Your Majesty," Koshart said.

"Admiral," Yaz replied, feeling for the first time like an utter fraud. but the Doctor still had her arm.

"Do you like the hall?"

There was an edge to the question, and Yaz expected she should answer shortly and coolly, but she couldn't hold in her enthusiasm. "Oh, yes very much. It's beautiful." Like the Doctor had said Yaz was beautiful.

"Just like on Nint?" Koshart pressed, and Yaz clued in. Her dress, a traditional Nintish dress, was made for zero gravity. They'd made this hall for her, or for the real Queen Extravaganza VII

"Every bit as lovely as Nint," the Doctor said, far more diplomatically than usual, though from the stars reflected in her eyes, Yaz suspected the Doctor was impressed. "Though do you have a biscuit? I could do with one now. Settles my stomach."

The little robot popped open, revealing a tray of finger foods and coloured glass balls with liquid bubbling inside. Yaz had tried zero gravity eating last time around, and had ended up spending more time chasing her food around the International Space Station than actually eating anything.

The doctor picked up a disc that was not entirely unlike a biscuit, flipped in the air, and neatly caught it in her mouth. "Bit fishy," she said. "What do you think, darling?" The Doctor flicked another, and Yaz barely had time to catch the not-a-biscuit in her mouth. It was a bit fishy.

"It's lovely," she said. She realised that if she let go of the handhold carefully, then she would just float in place rather than drifting away. It looked more regal that way. The Doctor slid her arm around Yaz's waist to secure them together, and then their bodies lay shoulder to shoulder. The thin material of Yaz's dress did nothing to block the feel of the Doctor's muscled thigh against hers. 

"Where's your entourage, ma'am?" Koshart asked. "You were most particular about them in the negotiations: twenty seven bodyguards must be with you at all times."

Where _was_ the queens entourage? Presumably with the queen. Before Yaz could say she'd changed her mind, the Doctor waved at the space around them and said, "Invisible. A bodyguard you can see isn't one worth having, don't you agree, darling?"

"Of course, Admiral," Yaz said, hoping it sounded like a smooth follow up. "Our negotiations said nothing about being able to see them, only what weapons they were permitted." That was a hedge, but a safe one. Security arrangements usually included it.

Koshart twitched and Yaz could tell that she was keeping herself from looking around for invisible Nintish soldiers. "Indeed," she said. "After the treaty is signed, we will have to discuss that technology."

"Yes, the treaty," Yaz said. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow." When hopefully they'd have the real queen to actually sign it, and the invisible bodyguards would be a mystery for the ages.

"I'm sure you are, Ma'am," Koshart said, her tone hard. "All of your people must be. Forgive me, I have business to attend to." With that she shoved off of the light, tucked and flipped with the ease of a life-long spacer, and arrowed off towards another light.

"Sweetheart," Yaz said, the word catching in her mouth. "We should discuss tomorrow. In private?"

"Of course, darling," the Doctor said. She let Yaz push away from the star, leaving behind the handful of people who'd been pointedly not listening in on their conversation with the admiral.

Friction eventually slowed their drift, and they floated gently near one of the walls. Stars lit the backdrop, and the Doctor's hair glowed. "You know," the Doctor said, "I once got out of a sticky spot like this by having a cricket ball in my pocket."

The ribbons of their costumes were drifting around them and intertwining, and Yaz was having trouble focusing on either the Doctor's anecdotes about her past lives or the situation at hand. The were floating hand in hand surrounded by the majesty of the universe, and it was far, far too much like any number of Yaz's fantasies.

Heart in her throat, she leaned forward and kissed the Doctor. Her lips felt cool under Yaz's and they parted slightly on the contact, but Yaz didn't know if that was surprise or a response. Yaz hadn't kissed very many people, and never one she'd been in love with. After only a second, she drew back, hoping the Doctor couldn't see her blush.

"Aww, that's nice," the Doctor said. "What was that for?"

"People are watching."

"Oh, right, we're pretending. Very sneaky!"

"Yes. Pretending," Yaz said, feeling hollow.

The Doctor's hand crept to the small of Yaz's back, pulling their bodies flush against each other. They'd started to spin and Yaz's dress slowly swirled around both of them, mingling with her hair. The Doctor leaned forward and kissed Yaz carefully on the lips, as though the Doctor hadn't kissed anyone in a very long time.

"I like pretending," the Doctor said. She was smiling at Yaz, not the huge firecracker smile, but an intimate tug of her lips that only just crinkled the corners of her eyes.

The smile made Yaz's heart clench and her hands tighten on the Doctor's shoulders. When had she started clutching the Doctor's shoulders? She could never tell if the Doctor was serious, but she decided that for this moment at least that she could let herself believe that their game was real. "I do too," she said.

And then the explosions started.

"Told you!" the Doctor said gleefully, and grabbed Yaz's hand. "Always at parties. Now where did I put that cricket ball?"


End file.
